Chris - this is an interesting lens through which to look at gca. I've not thought of it before, but you're right: both too much stress and too little stress lessens the fun of a round of golf. How the architect finds/creates just the right amount of stress, and the relief that goes with it when the stress-inducing challenge is surmounted or avoided, seems to me now the real key to good design. When you take away all the bells and whistles (and those are important too), you are left with this -- whether hole by hole and over the round as a whole, the tension-release balance is satisfying, and satisfying to a wide range of golfers. And it occurs to me that this balance is seen/desired in other many endeavours too: e.g. in a jazz/musical solo, it appears in terms of dissonance/surprise and resolution, and in yoga (I'm told) this tightening and letting go is a continual and central process. Good post
Peter
This is Peter Pallotta at his best; allowing folks to understand what they actually posted after Peter dissects the important elements and then re-packages it it terms to confirm the idea. Good post, indeed!
Agree that Peter's was an excellent post! Golfers seem to want to generally, over time and most days, shoot near their average score, i.e., not too much harder than they are used to, and not too much easier.
My take on those who think some of their courses (which overall, I find quite good, and frankly, I think they are among the better to best architects, technically and artistically) are a bit stressful.
As to Ken Dye, yes, he is a good golfer. His first year in ASGCA, I was assigned to play with him as sort of welcoming greeter. He shot 69 at TPC Sawgrass, including doubles on the last two holes. So yes, at least in that time period, his courses were a bit tougher than most, although, not sure its all because of his golf ability.
He trained under Joe Finger, who pinched pennies pretty well. So, on the courses of Ken's I have seen, he manages to keep infrastructure cost low. Using Painted Dunes in desert El Paso, where I added 9 to their original 18, as an example, they used mostly double row irrigation, whereas I would use 3-4 rows in that climate for sure. That results in pretty narrow fairways, as 2 row coverage really only gets 45 yards wide wet enough to grow grass. 3-4 rows gets you 60-70 yards, which is more to my taste.
Another of their techniques (which I HAVE adopted) is to design drainage for only really small storms, i.e. 1/4" per hour, whereas engineers would probably use something closer to 2-2.5" an hour minimum. It makes sense really, at least for golf, but I use 1/2-1" for a bit of safety.
As to golf ability, Ken used to favor multi-tier greens to test approach shots, and used them a lot more than most of us would. I think he/they have since softened that tendency. I know there is another thread on multi-tier greens and how bad they are, and I heard some industry criticism in the past about their over use of them, by good and bad players, as well as those who run golf courses.